Thursday, December 25, 2014

Christmas 2014

It was a fantastic Christmas! It was so fun watching Raegan's excitement over her gifts (especially the Santa gift), and watching Ava take it all in.
 
Checking out Ava's Santa gift

Raegan did a flailing crazy dance over her Barbie gymnastics set. :)


She was so excited!

Ava liked her walker.

I see you photobombing, Radar.


 

#avassillyfaces

 

 

 

 

Silly brother.

I love watching the three of them together. <3 p="">
 

 

The bow was just as exciting at the rattle. ;)

 

Some Christmas morning reality - Raegan pouting while her siblings watch on.

And the cute, less realistic picture.

Trash is fun too!
 
Presents at Grandma J's house

:)

 


Saturday, December 13, 2014

Lowe's Build and Grow Workshop

Raegan and I had a blast building a Christmas train at Lowe's this morning. For every workshop your child attends, they get a patch for their apron. I'm super excited to sign up for more and get Raegan All The Patches. :)  





Family Picture Outtakes

 
We had our family pictures taken in mid-October by Thomas Gray. We got some amazing photos, but I think I love the silly photos just as much as the beautiful ones that made our Christmas card and our living room wall. They all show the kids' personalities so much, and they are perfect!
 
 

 

 

 

 


Thursday, November 20, 2014

Changes

It seems like every day Ava is changing. I think my favorite time during the baby months is like 8 months-16 or 18 months. There are so many changes, and I love watching all the wonder on their faces as they discover new things about the world. Really, I love every month of the baby months, but the mobile infant stage was so fun with Raegan and I'm excited for it with Ava too.

Ava is basically crawling. She can crawl 5 or 6 paces before she plops down and goes back to army crawling. I think she realizes that she can move so much faster by army crawling so that's her default. On Wednesday last week she pulled herself up on her toy box. It's not tall enough for her to have been completely standing up, but she had her legs straight with her butt up in the air. :) And this Sunday she finally (after practicing all weekend) mastered going from crawling to sitting, or sitting to crawling. She so badly wants to be mobile and keep up with the big kids.

Lots of babbling - bah bah, ma ma, da da, and a scolding sounding one that sound likes blah blah blah. Her favorite thing to do these days is shake her head no whenever we ask her a question. It's hilarious. I love this silly girl so much.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Raegan-isms

Some gems from Raegan to remember:

Talking about how she's going to get her own house someday: "Because you're older than me so you'll die first Mom." I told her that was still a ways off and she said, "No Mom. You're really old. I bet it happens soon."

After I took braids out of her hair, it was really poofy. I said, "Raegan you've got some 80's hair going on. You need to leave the 80's to me and your dad since we were born then." She said, "Mom, I don't even know what you are saying to me right now."

Showing me a sparkly bead, "Mom, look at this really special thing I found when I was not napping during nap time today."

My girl is such a character!

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Silly Faces

Ava is quite the talker these days. And she loves her tongue. She's always sticking it out and curling it up and down. She's such a silly, happy girl. Anytime I get out my phone to take a picture of her, she gets very quiet and focused on my phone. I've handed it to her a few times and she instantly grabs it and gets super excited about it. It's amazing that she stayed on her back long enough for me to take these pictures. She's always rolling over to her stomach and she's getting really good at holding her head up. Several times she's rolled three or four times continuously, and I've found her several feet away from where she started off at. We wonder if she won't be a little quicker to crawl than Raegan was, but who knows. I'm okay with not having to babyproof for awhile longer. :)
 




New Room

Finally, finally this week we got Raegan moved into her new room. There's still a few things we need to get out of the old room, and we need to paint the dresser for Raegan's new room still, but basically she's moved in. She was super, super excited to sleep in her big girl bed Saturday evening for the first time. There's so much more room for her to play, and I've been working hard to organize it so that it can stay tidy (ish).
 

Bonus picture: Raegan as a walrus. :) Love my goofy girl.

Mastered!

Well, I think we've got the front wrap cross carry mastered. I've been watching videos on YouTube for a hip carry that I want to try this coming week.
 
 

 

Look at those blue, blue eyes!

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Highs and Lows

Raegan. So much personality wrapped up into four short years. She brings me so much joy, and so many challenges at the same time.

She's always been a bit high strung, a bit more needy than the norm. I didn't realize exactly how needy of a baby she was until Ava came along. Caring for Baby Ava is simple. She's laid back, she's happy most of the time, she's already pretty much on a schedule at not quite four months. People tell me that first babies are like that because you as a first time parent project your insecurities and worries onto your firstborn. I think there is a lot of truth in that, but I think Raegan was going to be this way regardless of anything I did.

2014 has been a challenging year as far as raising Raegan has gone. Starting about November or December last year, she started to demonstrate some new behaviors. In talking with other moms of four year olds, and from my own experience of four year old girls getting ready to head to kindergarten, I know it's not abnormal. I've seen it in action in plenty of other four year olds. When I see a mom at the store being sassed by a child that looks to be about four, I just want to hug her and say, "I'm in your club. I know." Four is hard. Everyone talks about two and three. No. Just no. Four is the trial by fire. And no one talks about how hard four is. I think it's because we all though they should be over these behaviors by now, and no one wants to admit that their four year old is throwing tantrums. And screaming at you. And throwing and kicking things. Obviously we have the added factor of Raegan no longer being the center of the universe with the addition of Ava. She loves Ava. Crazy, unconditional love. She never says a thing against her. But I would say there are a lot more attention seeking behaviors now, and a lot of them directed towards me. A lot of insecurities about her new place in our family. I'm trying as hard as I can to be patient, to be reassuring, to do the right thing, but some days. Oh, some days I just want to turn on the TV all day so that I can have a break.

But with the bad comes the good. Raegan feels everything. EVERYTHING. Deeply, vividly, intensely. So when things are WRONG AND BAD, they are the epitome of WRONG and BAD and no one will ever understand how painful her life is as it ends. But when things are good, they aren't just good. They are AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and THE BEST. And for this, I wouldn't change her for the world. Because even though her lows are low (so, so low) and challenging to deal with, her highs are so high. She is so excited about every small thing. She is so thankful for everything you give her or do for her. I hear daily that I am the best cooker. She is still thanking me for her new pink sparkly shoes a week later. Raegan is so joyous and so easily excited, and has so many plans for her life.

So I'll take this trial. This walk through the desert. I hope I can support her and help her to the extent that she'll come out of the challenging stage a better person. That she'll learn lessons that will stay with her, and become more mature in her emotions and behavior. But I wouldn't change Raegan for the world. Because maybe one day my little girl won't throw fits, but she also won't have stars in her eyes over everything. She'll become older and not see the world through the rose colored sparkly glasses that she does now. I'm going to try my hardest to help her keep her intensity and joy, and hopefully some of her emotion will smooth out a little.

It's quite the rollercoaster, parenting is. We'll see what comes next as we take the next hill towards five years old and kindergarten.



 
 
 
 
 
 
 

3 Month Pictures, Take Two

Why are you stuffing me in this doll bed again, Mommy?

Blankets are delicious!

 


 

 

I love the concentration on her face in this one.

Hehe

Her life is hard, y'all.

My favorite

Look at my blankie!

This one makes me giggle. It doesn't even look like her really.

#avassillyfaces

She loves her family!